Susan Daole last month gave $100 to President Barack Obama because she wanted to fight the flood of million-dollar checks supporting Mitt Romney.

“I think my contribution in its own way has just as much worth as the millions that some of the wealthy donors contribute,” said the 63-year-old librarian from Lexington, Ky. “And I’m really hoping that even my little bit makes a difference to get him elected again.”

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Full series: The Billion-Dollar Buy

Get to know a Super PAC

Sorry, Susan. It would take 100,000 Susan Daoles — nearly all of the registered Democrats in Lexington — giving $100 apiece just to match the $10 million that billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife dropped into the super PAC boosting Romney on a single day in June.

Make no mistake, there is no shortage of Susan Daoles this year: Roughly 2.5 million people have kicked in $200 or less to the various committees helping their candidate win the White House.

But those 2.5 million people account for less than 18 percent of the total money haul.

By contrast, 2,100 donors giving $50,000 or more have contributed about $200 million to the Obama and Romney campaign committees, victory funds and their supportive super PACs. That’s far more than the $148 million all those 2.5 million small donors contributed through the end of June, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data by POLITICO and the Campaign Finance Institute.

In other words: In an election purportedly being driven by the economic concerns of the middle class, the top 0.07 percent of donors are more valuable than the bottom 86 percent.

This isn’t true only at the extremes. Look across the full $830 million that those committees have raised, and the disparities are also stark: Just 14 percent of the donors account for 82 percent of the total take.

And at various points, the little people seemed to be the real power in presidential campaign finance, with Rove himself pioneering the use of direct mail and other techniques to build a massive small donor operation that helped power George W. Bush’s successful White House runs.

Four years ago, Obama used the Internet to raise an unprecedented amount of cash from small donors who helped him shatter fundraising records and led him to boast of ushering in “a new kind of politics.”

But the much-ballyhooed small donor revolution appears to be ending before it ever fully took hold. Instead, the explosion of big money is quickly diminishing one of the few avenues — outside of voting — for average folks to shape elections, help determine candidates’ viability and affect the course of the country.

Aline Kultgen, a retired teacher, from Columbia, Mo., is feeling the difference.

Voters bought 'a lemon' called Barack Obama in 2008 and even Cass Sunstein has jumped Obama's sinking ship. Obama has failed America's economic recovery. Americans deserves better. Over 91 percent of the total of money given to elect Mitt Romney is from donations that are less than

Big, secret donations — raised by nonprofit groups that can take unlimited checks without revealing their donors —

lol...........Got to love the intolerant American Left, not. Obama's pals in is Super Wolf Pac Press want to know the donors, like the Koch Brothers, so they can smear and intiminate them into not donating anymore to Republican or Conservative causes, its just plain Fascism everyone.

How many smear stories has Politico run on the Koch Brothers?

Are the Koch Brothers doing anything illegal? ..............Nope, but their donating money to groups the American Left.......aka Politico don't support.................so they get the 'smear' treatment.

Over 91 percent of the total of money given to elect Mitt Romney is from donations that are less than

$240.

Don't you ever bother to read the article? If you read more, you could use more reliable numbers and not have to rely on Republican numbers (that is, made-up numbers). Romney is getting only some 7% of his fundraising haul from small donations.

Our politically corrupted Supreme Court opened the floodgates to unlimited monies from behemoth corporations and our wealthiest plutocrats. Is it any surprise they are trying to buy the first elections (on every level) where they aren't limited by law? After all, they believe (arrogantly) that "the people who own this country should run it." Thus, they are mainly seeking to put a fellow one-percenter and plutocrat, Romney, into the White House. Romney is for the one percent, of the one percent and (bought and made) by the one percent. He is therefore trying to please them, which is easy because it means pleasing himself (since he's one of them). Unfortunately for our country, the wealthiest plutocrats are extraordinarily selfish and want only more money and power, regardless how badly it might hurt our country and economic growth. Therefore, Romney is running to give our richest citizens big tax cuts while sticking the rest of US with the tab. Independent tax center studies, using Romney's economic plans, show us how Romney plans to do it. They grind the numbers and show numerically Romney's pushing of more of our wealth to the richest, while making most of US poorer. If our richest plutocrats, individual and corporate, succeed in buying the election, they are halfway home to establishing a plutocracy. Republicans already work exclusively for them, as well as too many Democrats. The tea party dupes are playing right into their hands. Our country is already too often run by the richest and their selfishness has created avoidable economic messes and worlds of misery. Will we live to see the full and final transformation of our country from a representative democracy to a plutocracy? I believe this presidential election is critical in answering that question.

Yesterday Politico almost called it a blessing that the Obama campaign had received 75 million dollars. Politico had a very hard time dealing with the Romney spanking. Now they are trying to tell us that donations are such a bad thing. Question: How such has Politico donated to the Obama campaign? Question: How much does Politico think their hit pieces against Mitt Romney are worth? Doesn't Politico know that these millions being collected by Obama go to pay the MSM to keep on hating Mr Romney?

Hey Politico. I am proud to be a Romney donor. It takes four of me to match Susan Daoles' contribution so stop complaining about it. Hey Romeo, Obama opened the floodgates in 2008. Gotta love these liberals that never take responsibility for anything.

Well, let's talk about BIG donors. David Plouffe (Obama advisor) got a HUGE check from MTM Group $100,000, who also does serious business in Iran and Syria.

Top Obama aide profited from speaking to company doing business with Iran

David Plouffe is a senior adviser to the Obama administration and very much a member of President Obama’s inner circle. In 2008, he served as Obama’s campaign manager. MTN Group is a South African company that has been active in Iran and Syria, and is now under international sanctions as a result of that activity.

In December 2010, about a month before he joined the White House staff, Plouffe received $100,000 in speaking fees from a subsidiary of MTN Group. According to the Washington Post, Plouffe’s view was that MTN’s business dealings did not raise any issues that “would weigh against the proposed speaking engagement.”

Indeed, that remains the position of the Obama White House. Its spokesperson, Eric Schultz, says that MTN group’s role was not a high profile issue at the time Plouffe was invited to speak to its subsidiary. He claims that it is unfair to criticize Plouffe now for controversies that developed “years later.” As noted, however, it is less than two years since Plouffe received $100,000 from the Iran-friendly company.

This sounds like another story that was dictated from the White House.

The only reason we're hearing about big donors now is because Romney is raking in more money than Obama is.

Up until this election cycle, it was the Democrats raking in big bucks from deep-pocket donors and the press totally ignored the issue, oproving once again that the mainstream press is nothing more than an extension of the Democratic party propaganda machine.

The only reason we're hearing about big donors now is because Romney is raking in more money than Obama is.

Up until this election cycle, it was the Democrats raking in big bucks from deep-pocket donors and the press totally ignored the issue, oproving once again that the mainstream press is nothing more than an extension of the Democratic party propaganda machine.

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Of course. I wonder if the Obama campaign got any contributions from the MTN Group?

Senior Obama aide, David Plouffe, sure did cash in on the terrorist-tied company.

Susan Daole last month gave $100 to President Barack Obama because she wanted to fight the flood of million-dollar checks supporting Mitt Romney.

Check this out. Our Progressive/Liberal friend Mr. Vogel comes out with a Class Warfare statement coupled with a political analogy, followed up with a few straw men of opposing views and finally caps it off with a nice campaign style story of a womans biased generosity.

Thats just the opening six sentances ( as far as I could stand reading this potential tripe ).

Yo, Ken, are you vying for teleprompter/speech writer now?

Oh, and you forgot to mention Soros...

0:33

OBAMA: PRESIDENT or PUPPET ?

Who's pulling the strings in the Obama White House? Special...3 years ago

What a bogus article, here's another example of Politico shilling for the Obama Campaign. The article tries to push a david and goliath phony narrative by featuring a couple of whiny liberal small money donors complaining about the Koch Brothers and Karl Rove yet makes no mention of all the liberal Billionaire mega-donors like Georgie Soros and Warren Buffett (just to name a few) and fails to mention even one small money Romney donor like millions of Americans like myself.

Isn't it odd that when Obama crushed McCain in '08 with three times as much money (780 million dollsrs) the liberal media never said a word except for the myth that the money came from "small donations" the same farce they are still trying to push to this day.

Romney isn't out raising Obama because of scary rich Bogeymen, it's because the guy in charge is doing a rotten job of leading the country. Seems like every article you read about Obama raising less then Romney in any of the liberal media outlets like the WAPO, NY-Times, Politico Ect. are borderline fundraising advertisements for Obama.

If Politico wants to be taken seriously, it needs to go after President Obama's academic records. Very good sources tell us that Barack Obama submitted his Columbia application as a foreign national and that is why he has not disclosed many of his records.

Using Harry Reid's rule and Liberals who are demanding for Mitt Romney to release his records, the burden of proof is on Obama to prove he didn't get scholarships as a foreign student.

If Politico wants to be taken seriously, it needs to go after President Obama's academic records. Very good sources tell us that Barack Obama submitted his Columbia application as a foreign national and that is why he has not disclosed many of his records.

Yeah............................the word on the street ...........is that Obama didn't graduate from either Columbia or Harvard so if Obama wants to prove he's innocent all he has to do is to go on Fox News Sundary with Chris Wallace this Sunday......

Yeah............................the word on the street ...........is that Obama didn't graduate from either Columbia or Harvard so if Obama wants to prove he's innocent all he has to do is to go on Fox News Sundary with Chris Wallace this Sunday......

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"Prove he's innocent" of what? I'd LOVE to see what Oblamer's hiding with those academic records, but WHAT are you referring to?